Michael Everson’s cool bibliography of typography and scripts

This list includes only books which are actually in my collection. Now, some of them can be in your collection as well! Click on the hyperlinked ISBNs to go to Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk where you can check price and availability.

Massey, Thomas. 1763. The origin and progress of letters. An essay, in two parts. The First shewing when, and by whom Letters were invented; the Formation of the Alphabets of various Nations; their Manner of Writing, on what Materials, and with what Instruments Men have written in different Ages to the present Time. Wherein is considered the great Utility of this Art with regard to Mankind. The Second Part consists of a compendious Account of the most celebrated English Penmen, with the Titles and Characters of their Books they have published both from the Rolling and Letter Press. Interspersed with Many interesting Particulars by Way of Notes throughout the First part; and the Second is a new Species of Biography never attempted before in English. The Whole collected from undoubted Authorities, by W. Massey, Master of a Boarding School for many Years and Wandsworth in Surrey. London: J. Johnson

Wright, Thomas, ed. 1857. A Volume of Vocabularies, illustrating the condition and manners of our forefathers, as well as the history of the forms of elementary education and of the languages spoken in this island, from the tenth century to the fifteenth. Edited from MSS. in public and private circulation by Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., F.S.A., Hon.M.R.S.L., etc., corresponding member of the Institute of France (Académie des Inscription t Belles Lettres) (A Library of National Antiquities; 1) [Liverpool]: Privately Printed [by D. Marples].

Bell, Alexander Melville. 1887. Sounds and their relations: a complete manual of universal alphabetics, illustrated by means of Visible Speech and exhibiting the pronunciation of English, in various styles, and of other languages and dialects. New York: Edgar S. Werner. Visible Speech

Ben-Ḥayyim, Zeʼev. 2000. A grammar of Samaritan Hebrew: based on the Recitation of the Law in comparison with the Tiberian and other Jewish traditions. Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnnes Press; Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 1-57506-047-7Samaritan

Bhaskararao, Peri, ed. 2003. Working Papers of International Symposium on Indic Scripts: Past and Future. Organized y Research Institute for the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. Tokyo: ILCAA. ISBN Brahmic

Bowman, John H. 1998. Greek printing types in Britain from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Thessaloniki: Typophilia. ISBN 960-7285-20-4Greek

Brash, Richard Rolt. 1879. The Ogam inscribed monuments of the Gaedhil in the British Islands: with a dissertation on the Ogam character, & c. Illustrated with fifty photo-lithographic plates. Ed. George M. Atkinson. London: George Bell & Sons. Ogham

Calder, George, ed. 1995. Auraicept na n-Éces: the Scholars’ Primer; being the texts of the Ogham tract from the Book of Ballymote and the Yellow Book of Lecan, and the text of the Trefhocul from the Book of Leinster. Black Rock: Four Courts Press. (Original edition: Edinburgh: John Grant, 1917.) ISBN 1-85182-181-3Ogham

Chiang, William Wei. 1995. "We two know the script; we have become good friends": linguistic and social aspects of the Women’s Script literacy in southern Hunan, China. Lanham, New York, London: University Press of America. ISBN 0-7618-0014-X (paper); 0-7618-0013-1 (cloth) Nǚshū

Doke, Clement M. 1940. An outline of the phonetics of the language of the ʗhṷ̃: Bushmen of North-West Kalahari. Reprinted from Bantu Studies, December 1925. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press.

Gordon, F. G. 1931. Through Basque to Minoan: transliterations and translations of the Minoan tablets. London: Oxford University Press. Linear B, Phaistos disk Gordon’s work was valiant in its courage and effort, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. Shows fonts for the scripts, though.

Hreinn Benediktsson. 1965. Early Icelandic script: as illustrated in vernacular texts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Reykjavík: Manuscript Institute of Iceland. Latin

Humphreys Henry Noel. [1868?]. "The origin and progress of the art of writing; a connected narrative on the development of the art, in its primeval phases in Egypt, China, and Mexico; its middle state in the Cuneatic systems of Ninevah and Persepolis; its introduction to Europe through the medium of the Hebrew, Phœnician, and Greek systems; and its subsequent progress to the present day", in Webster’s Improved Dictionary of the English language, exhibiting the origin, orthography, pronunciation, & definition of words; embracing all the principal terms used in literature, science & art, according to the best authorities; and likewise giving the synonymous terms for nearly all the words explained. 2 vols. London, Glasgow, & Edinburgh: William MacKenzie.

[Le Jeune, Jean-Marie.] 1898. Chinook and Shorthand Rudiments: with which the Chinook Jargon and the Wawa Shorthand can be mastered without a teacher in a few hours. [Printed for Fr. LeJeune’s Indian mission]: Kamloops, British Columbia. Author listed as "by the editor of the "Kamloops Wawa." 16 pp. 3.75 x 6.0 inches (90mm x 155mm); one folded signature, not cut at top or saddle-stitched. This book is extremely rare! I put a copy of it online. Chinook Jargon Shorthand

Mastoridis, Klimis. 1999. Casing the Greek newspaper: a study of the morphology of the ephemeris from its origins until the introduction of mechanical setting. Thessaloniki: Hellennic Literary and Historical Archive. ISBN 960-201-134-3Greek

Naveh, Joseph. 1997 (1987). Early history of the alphabet: an introduction to West Semitic epigraphy and palaeography. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University. ISBN 965-223-436-2Semitic scripts

Okell, John. 1971. A guide to the romanization of Burmese. (James G. Forlang Fund; 27) London: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Burmese

O’Neill, Timothy. 1984. The Irish hand: scribes and their manuscripts from the earliest times to the seventeenth century with an exemplar of scripts. Portlaoise: Dolmen Press. ISBN 0-85105-411-0Latin (Gaelic)

Pitman, James, & John St. John. 1969. Alphabets and reading: The Initial Teaching Alphabet. New York, London, Toronto: Pitman Publishing Corporation. ISBN 0-273-43343-1 (My copy is signed by the author James Pitman, who was grandson of Isaac Pitman who devised a Pitman Shorthand and the phonetic Phonotypic Alphabet.) Latin

Schmitt, Alfred. 1963. Die Bamum-Schrift. Band I: Text. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Bamum Unfortunately I only have Volume I (meaning I don’t have any of the samples of the script ☹), though the volume itself is signed by the author and was presented to Björn Collinder.

Serafini, Luigi. 1983. Codex seraphinianus. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-428-9A rare book in an imaginary language and an imaginary script. Click here to see a sample. Click here to go to some observations Ivan Derzhanski has made on the chapter headings and number system used in this book.

Shaw, Bernard. 1962. Androcles & the Lion. Printed in the Shaw Alphabet with a parallel transription in traditional orthography. Public Trustee’s Edition. Penguin Books. (The Public Trustee’s Edition was the free presentation copy sent out by C. R. Sopwith, the Public Trustee, in accordance to the terms of Shaw’s will. My copy has a letter dated 1962-11-20 from C. R. Sopwith to the Lord Bledisloe, to whom this copy was originally presented.) Shavian

Smalley, William A., Chia Koua Yang, and Gnia Yee Yang. 1990. Mother of writing: the origin and development of a Hmong messianic script. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-76287-4Pahawh Hmong

von Osterman, Georg F. 1952. Manual of foreign languages: for the use of librarians, bibliographers, research workers, editors, translators, and printers. Fourth edition, revised and enlarged. New York: Central Book Company.

Wolf, Edwin, ed. 1947. Doctrina christiana: the first book printed in the Philippines, Manila, 1593. A facsimile of the copy in the Lessing J. Rosenwald collection, Library of Congress, Washington. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. Tagalog

Zapf, Hermann. 1987. Hermann Zapf and his design philosophy: selected articles and lectures on calligraphy and contemporary developments in type design, with illustrations and bibliographical notes, and a complete list of his typefaces. Chicago: Society of Typographic Arts. ISBN 0-941447-00-6